THE BUILDERS

BY

JOSEPH FORT NEWTON,
LITT. D.

This society was called the Dionysian
Artificers, as Bacchus was supposed to be the inventor of building theaters;
and they performed the Dionysian festivities. From this period, the Science of
Astronomy which had given rise to the Dionysian rites, became connected with
types taken from the art of building. The Ionian societies . . . extended
their moral views, in con-junction with the art of building, to many useful
purposes, and to the practice of acts of benevolence. They had significant
words to distinguish their members; and for the same purpose they used emblems
taken from the art of building.

--JOSEPH DA COSTA, Dionysian Artificers.

We need not then consider it improbable, if
in the dark centuries when the Roman empire was dying out, and its glorious
temples falling into ruin; when the arts and sciences were falling into disuse
or being enslaved; and when no place was safe from persecution and warfare,
the guild of the Architects should fly for safety to almost the only free spot
in Italy; and here, though they could no longer practice their craft, they
preserved the legendary knowledge and precepts which, as history implies, came
down to them through Vitruvius from older sources, some say from Solomon's
builders themselves.

CHAPTER V

The Collegia

SO far in our study we have found that from
earliest time architecture was related to religion; that the working tools of
the builder were emblems of moral truth; that there were great secret orders
using the Drama of Faith as a rite of initiation; and that a hidden doctrine
was kept for those accounted worthy, after trial, to be entrusted with it.
Secret societies, born of the nature and need of man, there have been almost
since recorded history began; but as yet we have come upon no separate and
distinct order of builders. For aught we know there may have been such in
plenty, but we have no intimation, much less a record, of the fact. That is to
say, history has a vague story to tell us of the earliest orders of the
builders.

However, it is more than a mere plausible
inference that from the beginning architects were members of secret orders;
for, as we have seen, not only the truths of religion and philosophy, but also
the

facts of science and the laws of art,
were held as secrets to be known only to the few. This was so, apparently
without exception, among all ancient peoples; so much so, indeed, that we may
take it as certain that the builders of old time were initiates. Of necessity,
then, the arts of the craft were secrets jealously guarded, and the architects
themselves, while they may have employed and trained ordinary workmen, were
men of learning and influence. Such glimpses of early architects as we have
con-firm this inference, as, for example, the noble hymn to the Sun-god
written by Suti and Hor, two architects employed by Amenhotep III, of Egypt.
Just when the builders began to form orders of their own no one knows, but it
was perhaps when the Mystery-cults began to journey abroad into other lands.
What we have to keep in mind is that all the arts had their home in the
temple, from which, as time passed, they spread out fan-wise along all the
paths of culture.

Keeping in mind the secrecy of the laws of
building, and the sanctity with which all science and art were regarded, we
have a key whereby to interpret

the legends woven about the building of
the temple of Solomon. Few realize how high that temple on Mount Moriah
towered in the history of the olden world, and how the story of its building
haunted the legends and traditions of the times following. Of these legends
there were many, some of them wildly improbable, but the persistence of the
tradition, and its consistency withal, despite many variations, is a fact
of no small moment. Nor is this tradition to be wondered at, since time
has shown that the building of the temple at Jerusalem was an event of
world-importance, not only to the Hebrews, but to other nations, more
especially the Phoenicians. The histories of both peoples make much of the
building of the Hebrew temple, of the friendship of Solomon and Hiram I, of
Tyre, and of the harmony between the two peoples; and Phoenician tradition has
it that Solomon presented Hiram with a duplicate of the temple, which was
erected in Tyre.

Clearly, the two nations were drawn closely
together, and this fact carried with it a mingling of religious influences and
ideas, as was true between the Hebrews and other nations, especially Egypt and
Phoenicia, during the reign of Solomon. Now

the religion of the Phoenicians at this time,
as all agree, was the Egyptian religion in a modified form, Dionysius having
taken the role of Osiris in the drama of faith in Greece, Syria, and Asia
Minor. Thus we have the Mysteries of Egypt, in which Moses was learned,
brought to the very door of the temple of Solomon, and that, too, at a time
favorable to their impress. The Hebrews were not architects, and it is plain
from the records that the temple--and, indeed, the palaces of Solomon--were
designed and erected by Phoenician builders, and for the most part by
Phoenician workmen and materials. Josephus adds that the architecture of the
temple was of the style called Grecian. So much would seem to be fact,
whatever may be said of the legends flowing from it.

If, then, the laws of building were
secrets known only to initiates, there must have been a secret Order of
architects who built the temple of Solomon. Who were they? They were almost
certainly the Dionysian Artificers--not to be confused with the
play-actors called by the same name later--an Order of builders who erected
temples, stadia, and theaters in Asia Minor, and who were at the same time an
order of the Mysteries under the tutelage of Bacchus before that worship
declined, as it did later in Athens and Rome, into mere revelry.
As

such, they united the art of architecture
with the old Egyptian drama of faith, representing in their ceremonies the
murder of Dionysius by the Titans and his return to life. So that, blending
the symbols of Astronomy with those of Architecture, by a slight change made
by a natural process, how easy for the master-artist of the temple-builders to
become the hero of the ancient drama of immortality.

[paragraph continues]
Whether or not this fact can be verified from history, such is the form in
which the tradition has come down to us, surviving through long ages and
triumphing over all vicissitude. Secret orders have few
records and their story is hard to tell, but this account is perfectly in
accord with the spirit and setting of the situation, and there is neither fact
nor reason against it. While this does not establish it as true historically,
it surely gives it validity as a prophecy, if nothing more.

After all, then, the tradition that Masonry,
not unlike the Masonry we now know, had its origin while the temple of King
Solomon was building, and was given shape by the two royal friends, may not be
so fantastic as certain superior folk seem to think it. How else can we
explain the fact that when the Knights of the Crusades went to the Holy Land
they came back a secret, oath-bound fraternity? Also, why is it that, through
the ages, we see bands of builders coming from the East calling themselves
"sons of Solomon," and using his interlaced triangle-seal as their emblem?
Strabo, as we have seen, traced the Dionysiac builders eastward into Syria,
Persia, and even India. They may also be traced westward. Traversing Asia
Minor, they entered Europe by way of Constantinople, and we follow them
through Greece to Rome, where already several centuries before Christ we find
them bound together in corporations called Collegia. These lodges flourished
in all parts of the Roman Empire, traces of their existence having been
discovered in England as early as the middle of the first century of our era.

II

Krause was the first to point out a prophecy of
Masonry in the old orders of builders, following

their footsteps--not connectedly, of
course, for there are many gaps--through the Dionysiac fraternity of Tyre,
through the Roman Collegia, to the architects and Masons of the Middle Ages.
Since he wrote, however, much new material has come to light, but the date of
the advent of the builders in Rome is still uncertain. Some trace it to the
very founding of the city, while others go no further back than King Numa, the
friend of Pythagoras. 1
By any account, they were of great antiquity, and their influence in Roman
history was far-reaching. They followed the Roman legions to remote places,
building cities, bridges, and temples, and it was but natural that Mithra, the
patron god of soldiers, should have influenced their orders. Of this an
example may be seen in the remains of the ancient Roman villa at Morton, on
the Isle of Wight.

As Rome grew in power and became a vast,
all-embracing empire, the individual man felt, more

and more, his littleness and loneliness. This
feeling, together with the increasing specialization of industry, begat a
passion for association, and Collegia of many sorts were organized. Even a
casual glance at the inscriptions, under the heading Artes et Opificia,
will show the enormous development of skilled handicrafts, and how minute was
their specialization. Every trade soon had its secret order, or union, and so
powerful did they become that the emperors found it necessary to abolish the
right of free association. Yet even such edicts, though effective for a little
time, were helpless as against the universal craving for combination. Ways
were easily found whereby to evade the law, which had exempted from its
restrictions orders consecrated by their antiquity or their religious
character. Most of the Collegia became funerary and charitable in their
labors, humble folk seeking to escape the dim, hopeless obscurity of plebeian
life, and the still more hopeless obscurity of death. Pathetic beyond words
are some of the inscriptions telling of the horror and loneliness of the
grave, of the day when no kindly eye would read the forgotten name, and no
hand bring offerings of flowers. Each collegium held memorial services, and
marked the tomb of its dead with the emblems of its trade: if a baker, with a
loaf of bread; if a builder, with a square, compasses, and the level.

From the first the Colleges of Architects seem
to have enjoyed special privileges and exemptions, owing to the value of their
service to the state, and while we do not find them called Free-masons they
were such in law and fact long before they wore the name. They were permitted
to have their own constitutions and regulations, both secular and religious.
In form, in officers, in emblems a Roman Collegium resembled very much a
modern Masonic Lodge. For one thing, no College could consist of less than
three persons, and so rigid was this rule that the saying, "three make a
college," became a maxim of law. Each College was presided over by a Magister,
or Master, with two decuriones, or wardens, each of whom extended the
commands of the Master to "the brethren of his column." There were a
secretary, a treasurer, and a keeper of archives, and, as the colleges were in
part religious and usually met near some temple, there was a sacerdos,
or, as we would say, a priest, or chaplain. The members were of three orders,
not unlike apprentices, fellows, and masters, or colleagues. What ceremonies
of initiation were used we do not know, but that they were of a religious
nature seems certain, as each College adopted a patron deity from among the
many then worshiped. Also, as the Mysteries of Isis and Mithra ruled the Roman

Of the emblems of the Collegia, it is enough to
say that here again we find the simple tools of the builder used as teachers
of truth for life and hope in death. Upon a number of sarcophagi, still
extant, we find carved the square, the compasses, the cube, the plummet, the
circle, and always the level. There is, besides, the famous Collegium
uncovered at the excavation of Pompeii in 1878, having been buried under the
ashes and lava of Mount Vesuvius since the year 79 A. D. It stood near the
Tragic Theater, not far from the Temple of Isis, and by its arrangement, with
two columns in front and interlaced triangles on the walls, was identified as
an ancient lodge room. Upon a pedestal in the room was found a rare bit of
art, unique in design and exquisite in execution, now in the National Museum
at Naples. It is described by S. R. Forbes, in his Rambles in Naples,
as follows:

It is a mosaic table of square shape, fixed
in a strong wooden frame. The ground is of grey green stone, in the middle
of which is a human skull, made of white, grey, and black colors. In
appearance the skull is quite natural. The eyes, nostrils, teeth, ears, and
coronal are all well executed. Above the skull is a level of colored wood,
the points being of brass; and from the top to the point, by a white thread,
is suspended a plumb-line. Below p. 84
the skull is a wheel of six spokes, and on the upper rim of the wheel there
is a butterfly with wings of red, edged with yellow; its eyes blue. . . On
the left is an upright spear, resting on the ground; from this there hangs,
attached to a golden cord, a garment of scarlet, also a purple robe; whilst
the upper part of the spear is surrounded by a white braid of diamond
pattern. To the right is a gnarled thorn stick, from which hangs a coarse,
shaggy piece of cloth in yellow, grey, and brown colors, tied with a ribbon;
and above it is a leather knapsack. . . Evidently this work of art, by its
composition, is mystical and symbolical.

No doubt; and for those who know the meaning of
these emblems there is a feeling of kinship with those men, long since fallen
into dust, who gathered about such an altar. They wrought out in this work of
art their vision of the old-worn pilgrim way of life, with its vicissitude and
care, the level of mortality to which all are brought at last by death, and
the winged, fluttering hope of man. Always a journey with its horny staff and
wallet, life is sometimes a battle needing a spear, but for him who walks
uprightly by the plumb-line of rectitude, there is a true and victorious hope
at the end.

Of wounds and sore defeat
I made my battle stay,
Winged sandals for my feet
I wove of my delay. p. 85
Of weariness and fear
I made a shouting spear,
Of loss and doubt and dread
And swift on-coming doom
I made a helmet for my head,
And a waving plume.

III

Christianity, whose Founder was a Carpenter,
made a mighty appeal to the working classes of Rome. As Deissmann and Harnack
have shown, the secret of its expansion in the early years was that it came
down to the man in the street with its message of hope and joy. Its appeal was
hardly heard in high places, but it was welcomed by the men who were weary and
heavy ladened. Among the Collegia it made rapid progress, its Saints taking
the place of pagan deities as patrons, and its spirit of love welding men into
closer, truer union. When Diocletian determined to destroy Christianity, he
was strangely lenient and patient with the Collegia, so many of whose members
were of that faith. Not until they refused to make a statue of ∆sculapius did
he vow vengeance and turn on them, venting his fury. In the persecution that
followed four Master Masons and one humble apprentice suffered cruel torture
and death, but they became the

[paragraph continues]
Four Crowned Martyrs, the story of whose heroic fidelity unto death haunted
the legends of later times. They were the patron saints
alike of Lombard and Tuscan builders, and, later, of the working Masons of the
Middle Ages, as witness the poem in their praise in the oldest record of the
Craft, the Regius MS.

With the breaking up of the College of
Architects and their expulsion from Rome, we come upon a period in which it is
hard to follow their path. Happily the task has been made less baffling by
recent research, and if we are unable to trace them all the way much light has
been let into the darkness. Hitherto there has been a hiatus also in the
history of architecture between the classic art of Rome, which is said to have
died when the Empire fell to

pieces, and the rise of Gothic art. Just so, in
the story of the builders one finds a gap of like length, between the Collegia
of Rome and the cathedral artists. While the gap cannot, as yet, be perfectly
bridged, much has been done to that end by Leader Scott in The Cathedral
Builders: The Story of a Great Masonic Guild--a book itself a work of art
as well as of fine scholarship. Her thesis is that the missing link is to be
found in the Magistri Comacini, a guild of architects who, on the break-up of
the Roman Empire, fled to Comacina, a fortified island in Lake Como, and there
kept alive the traditions of classic art during the Dark Ages; that from them
were developed in direct descent the various styles of Italian architecture;
and that, finally, they carried the knowledge and practice of architecture and
sculpture into France, Spain, Germany, and England. Such a thesis is
difficult, and, from its nature, not susceptible of absolute proof, but the
writer makes it as certain as anything can well be.

While she does not positively affirm that the
Comacine Masters were the veritable stock from which the Freemasonry of the
present day sprang, "we may admit," she says, "that they were the link between
the classic Collegia and all other art and trade Guilds of the Middle Ages.
They were Free-masons because they were builders of a privileged

class, absolved from taxes and servitude,
and free to travel about in times of feudal bondage." The name
Free-mason--Libera muratori--may not actually have been used thus
early, but the Comacines were in fact free builders long before the name
was employed--free to travel from place to place, as we see from their
migrations; free to fix their own prices, while other workmen were bound to
feudal lords, or by the Statutes of Wages. The author quotes in the original
Latin an Edict of the Lombard King Rotharis, dated November 22, 643, in which
certain privileges are confirmed to the Magistri Comacini and their
colligantes. From this Edict it is clear that it is no new order that is
alluded to, but an old and powerful body of Masters capable of acting as
architects, with men who executed work under them. For the Comacines were not
ordinary workmen, but artists, including architects, sculptors, painters, and
decorators, and if affinities of style left in stone be adequate evidence, to
them were due the changing forms of architecture in Europe during the
cathedral-building period. Everywhere they left their distinctive impress in a
way so unmistakable as to leave no doubt.

Under Charlemagne the Comacines began their
many migrations, and we find them following the missionaries of the church
into remote places, from

[paragraph continues]
Sicily to Britain, building churches. When Augustine went to convert the
British, the Comacines followed to provide shrines, and Bede, as early as 674,
in mentioning that builders were sent for from Gaul to build the church at
Wearmouth, uses phrases and words found in the Edict of King Rotharis. For a
long time the changes in style of architecture, appearing simultaneously
everywhere over Europe, from Italy to England, puzzled students.
Further knowledge of this powerful and widespread order explains it. It also
accounts for the fact that no individual architect can be named as the
designer of any of the great cathedrals. Those cathedrals were the work, not
of individual artists, but of an order who planned, built, and adorned them.
In 1355 the painters of Siena seceded, as the German Masons did later, and the
names of individual artists who worked for fame and glory begin to appear; but
up to that time the Order was supreme. Artists from Greece and Asia Minor,
driven from their homes, took refuge with the Comacines, and Leader Scott
finds in this order a possible link, by tradition at least, with the temple of
Solomon. At any rate, all through the Dark Ages the name and fame of the
Hebrew king lived in the minds of the builders.

the Comacine Guild was organized as Magistri
and Discipuli, under a Gastaldo, or Grand Master, the very same
terms as were kept in the lodges later. Moreover, they called their meeting
places loggia, a long list of which the author recites from the records of
various cities, giving names of officers, and, often, of members. They, too,
had their masters and wardens, their oaths, tokens, grips, and passwords which
formed a bond of union stronger than legal ties. They wore white aprons and
gloves, and revered the Four Crowned Martyrs of the Order. Square, compasses,
level, plumb-line, and arch appear among their emblems. "King Solomon's Knot"
was one of their symbols, and the endless, interwoven cord, symbol of Eternity
which has neither beginning nor end, was another. Later, however, the Lion's
Paw seems to have become their chief emblem. From illustrations given by the
author they are shown in their regalia, with apron and emblems, clad as the
keepers of a great art and teaching of which they were masters.

Here, of a truth, is something more than
prophecy, and those who have any regard for facts will not again speak lightly
of an order having such ancestors as the great Comacine Masters. Had Fergusson
known their story, he would not have paused in his History of Architecture
to belittle the Free-masons

as incapable of designing a cathedral, while
puzzling the while as to who did draw the plans for those dreams of beauty and
prayer. Hereafter, if any one asks to know who uplifted those massive piles in
which was portrayed the great drama of mediaeval worship, he need not remain
uncertain. With the decline of Gothic architecture the order of Free-masons
also suffered decline, as we shall see, but did not cease to exist--continuing
its symbolic tradition amidst varying, and often sad, vicissitude until 1717,
when it became a fraternity teaching spiritual faith by allegory and moral
science by symbols.

Footnotes

74:1 We may add
the case of Weshptah, one of the viziers of the Fifth Dynasty in Egypt, about
2700 B. C., and also the royal architect, for whom the great tomb was built,
endowed, and furnished by the king (Religion in Egypt, by Breasted,
lecture ii); also the statue of Semut, chief of Masons under Queen Hatasu, now
in Berlin.

76:1
Symbolism of Masonry, Mackey, chap. vi; also in Mackey's Encyclopedia
of Masonry, both of which were drawn from Historyp. 77of Masonry, by Laurie, chap. i; and Laurie in turn derived his facts
from a Sketch for the History of the Dionysian Artificers, A Fragment,
by H. J. Da Costa (1820). Why Waite and others brush the Dionysian architects
aside as a dream is past finding out in view of the evidence and authorities
put; forth by Da Costa, nor do they give any reason for so doing. "Lebedos was
the seat and assembly of the Dionysian Artificers, who inhabit Ionia to
the Hellespont; there they had annually their solemn meetings and festivities
in honor of Bacchus," wrote Strabo (lib. xiv, 921). They were a secret society
having signs and words to distinguish their members (Robertson's Greece),
and used emblems taken from the art of building (Eusebius, de Prep. Evang.
iii, c. 12). They entered Asia Minor and Phoenicia fifty years before the
temple of Solomon was built, and Strabo traces them on into Syria, Persia, and
India. Surely here are facts not to be swept aside as romance because,
forsooth, they do not fit certain theories. Moreover, they explain many
things, as we shall see.

77:1 Rabbinic
legend has it that all the workmen on the temple were killed, so that they
should not build another temple devoted to idolatry (Jewish Encyclopedia,
article "Freemasonry"). Other legends equally absurd cluster about the temple
and its building, none of which is to be taken literally. As a fact, Hiram the
architect, or rather artificer in metals, did not lose his life, but, as
Josephus tells us, lived to good age and died at Tyre. What the legend is
trying to tell us, however, is that at the building of the temple the
Mysteries mingled with Hebrew faith, each .mutually influencing the other.

78:1 Strangely
enough, there is a sect or tribe called the Druses, now inhabiting the Lebanon
district, who claim to be not only the descendants of the Phoenicians, but
the builders of King Solomon's temple. So persistent and important among
them is this tradition that their religion is built about it--if indeed it be
not something more than a legend. They have Khalwehs, or temples, built after
the fashion of lodges, with three degrees of initiation, and, though an
agricultural folk, they use signs and tools of building as emblems of moral
truth. They have signs, grips, and passwords for recognition. In the words of
their lawgiver, Hamze, their creed reads: "The belief in the Truth of One God
shall take the place of Prayer; the exercise of brotherly love shall take the
place of Fasting; and the daily practice of acts of Charity shall take the
place of Alms-giving." Why such a people, having such a tradition? Where did
they get it? What may this fact set in the fixed and changeless East mean?
(See the essay of Hackett Smith on "The Druses and Their Relation to
Freemasonry," and the discussion following, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum,
iv. 7-19.)

78:2 Rawlinson, in
his History of Phoenicia, says the people "had for ages possessed the
mason's art, it having been brought in very early days from Egypt." Sir C.
Warren found on the foundation stones at Jerusalem Mason's marks in Phoenician
letters (A. Q. C;., ii, 125; iii, 68).

80:1 See essay on
"A Masonic Built City," by S. R. Forbes, a study of the plan and building of
Rome, Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, iv, 86. As there will be many references
to the proceedings of the Coronatorum Lodge of Research, it will be convenient
hereafter to use only its initials, A. Q. C., in behalf of brevity. For
an account of the Collegia in early Christian times, see Roman Life from
Nero to Aurelius, by Dill (bk. ii, chap. iii); also De Collegia, by
Mommsen. There is an excellent article in Mackey's Encyclopedia of
Freemasonry, and Gould, His. Masonry, vol. i, chap. i.

86:1 Their names
were Claudius, Nicostratus, Simphorianus, Castorius, and Simplicius. Later
their bodies were brought from Rome to Toulouse where they were placed in a
chapel erected in their honor in the church of St. Sernin (Martyrology,
by Du Saussay). They became patron saints of Masons in Germany, France, and
England (A. Q. C., xii, 196). In a fresco on the walls of the church of
St. Lawrence at Rotterdam, partially preserved, they are painted with
compasses and trowel in hand. With them, however, is another figure, clad in
oriental robe, also holding compasses, but with a royal, not a martyr's,
crown. Is he Solomon? Who else can he be? The fresco dates from 1641, and was
painted by F. Wounters (A. Q. C., xii, 202). Even so, those humble
workmen, faithful to their faith, became saints of the church, and reign with
Solomon! Once the fresco was whitewashed, but the coating fell off and they
stood forth with compasses and trowel as before.